An MP faces an inquiry from Parliament’s sleaze watchdog over claims he was involved in racist abuse of a black journalist. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating a complaint against South Basildon and East Thurrock MP James McMurdock, who was elected as a Reform MP in 2024 and is currently an independent.
It comes after Mr McMurdock responded to a post on X about Sky News correspondent Mhari Aurora being involved in row with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty complained that Mr McMurdock responded with the single letter “n”, in a post on X which has now been deleted.
Other people then responded with single-letter posts of their own to spell out an offensive racist word.
Mr Obese-Jecty said in August: “I wrote to the Standards Commissioner asking him to investigate James McMurdock MP after he appeared to instigate this racial slur.”
In a letter to Parliamentary Commissioner Daniel Greenberg, he said Mr McMurdock started a so-called “n-tower”. He said this was “a means of using a racial slur against an individual on an online platform whilst circumventing moderation that would remove racially abusive content”.
He added: “The practice involves spelling out a racial slur vertically, with each individual posting a single letter of the word in order to spell it vertically.”
Mr McMurdock described the claim as “beyond ridiculous”.
He said earlier this month: “At the time of the alleged incident I was on a family holiday. More specifically in a family restaurant with my wife, children, and extended family.
“I noticed I had unknowingly posted an entirely random, and wholly insignificant, one letter comment, beneath a random news article, which I immediately deleted.”
The commissioner has announced he is investigating Mr McMurdock over claims of “causing significant damage to the reputation of the House as a whole, or of its members generally”.
Mr McMurdock left Reform UK in July after The Sunday Times published a story on Saturday which alleged two businesses connected to the South Basildon and East Thurrock MP took out Covid-19 loans totalling £70,000 during the pandemic, one of which had no employees.
The now-independent MP has insisted that all of his business dealings “had always been conducted fully within the law and in compliance with all regulations and that appropriately qualified professionals had reviewed all activity confirming the same”.